scruffmcgruff wrote:Also, hooray for RSS feeds! I haven't tested out the forum-specific ones yet, but thanks in advance.

Is my Google Reader an RSS feed? Is there some way to subscribe to specific forums as an RSS feed?

Sal, your google reader is an RSS aggregator, which means it collects all the RSS feeds you subscribe to and lets you view them in one place.

To do that... when you are on a page you want to subscribe to (I have not done this with TeaChat yet, if you use firefox there will be a little orange square with a dot and two quarter circles. Click on it, and hit subscribe and select which one you want. This will book mark it.

To then put it on google reader, find the bookmark, and right click and select "properties." Copy the feed location, and go to google reader (easier if its in another window or tab) and hit add subscription and then paste the feed location in that bar.

Sorry if you use another browser, firefox has been the only one I've used for quite some time, hopefully its similar enough that you can find out.

You may be able to use googles search function for feeds to add it that way, may be easier and worth a try to search for teachat, under the browse for stuff category for Google Reader.

Chip wrote:Things I think I like. The top banner remains stationary while the forum scrolls under it. Pretty slick.

This is one thing that I don't like. I agree that it looks slick, but it kills too much screen real estate.

Agreed, I've never really been a fan of stationary objects on a page. There are some benefits, but there are lots of buttons in the new layout that take you back up to the top of the page quickly, if you really need something up there.

The screen real estate issue is especially important now that everything else seems to take up more space than it used to.

Agreed about the stationary banner. It demands too much real estate, and unnecessarily too. Plus it makes me feel as though I'm trapped in a frameset.

To hop on another bandwagon, yes, I too find that the fonts are too big - especially the headings, which end up wrapping a bit too often. I'm actually amazed to find myself saying this, since there are far too many sites where I find the font sizes too small (yes, I'm getting to that age). But it's a disadvantage here. And it's not just a matter of extra scrolling, either. Since I do like to take the occasional furtive peek at TeaChat when at the office, it's nice if I'm not advertising the fact to my coworkers

I miss the breadcrumb trail to take me back to the subforum for the thread I'm currently reading. Breadcrumbs go nicely with tea.

Overall, there's a boxy/blocky feel to the new skin that I'm having trouble getting accustomed to. I long for curves. (No jokes please.) I daresay I can get used to it though. Agreed that it's disconcerting to see the avatars etc. on the right, but I'll just try to pretend that I'm in Britain!

Just out of curiosity (and I apologize if I've missed it elsewhere), what were the pluses of the new approach that persuaded you guys to make the change? Aside from the much-anticipated Taste-O-Vision, that is

And on the positive side, I do like the features on the top navbar: i.e. the even-more-sortable Members list, attractive FAQ page, new User Control Panel (slick!), and the (appearance of) the Advanced Search. Obviously there are still some hiccups with the actual search function, but I have faith that Ilya will sort it out.

I agree with first post. On a small vertical resolution monitor (1280x800), it's very difficult to read because of the bigger font. I feel like I'm peering through too small of a window to get a glimpse of what's going on.

Maybe a start would be to ask if it is really necessary to have the upper banner persist while scrolling throughout the page? I think I speak for at least a handful board regulars when I say that the TeaMap, TeaChef, TeaCritic, or TeaMuse are certainly not crucial links that need to be available at all times. But I just want as much vertical space back as possible.

Chip wrote:Things I think I like. The top banner remains stationary while the forum scrolls under it. Pretty slick.

This is one thing that I don't like. I agree that it looks slick, but it kills too much screen real estate.

Agreed, I've never really been a fan of stationary objects on a page. There are some benefits, but there are lots of buttons in the new layout that take you back up to the top of the page quickly, if you really need something up there.

The screen real estate issue is especially important now that everything else seems to take up more space than it used to.

Agreed about the stationary banner. It demands too much real estate, and unnecessarily too. Plus it makes me feel as though I'm trapped in a frameset.

To hop on another bandwagon, yes, I too find that the fonts are too big - especially the headings, which end up wrapping a bit too often. I'm actually amazed to find myself saying this, since there are far too many sites where I find the font sizes too small (yes, I'm getting to that age). But it's a disadvantage here. And it's not just a matter of extra scrolling, either. Since I do like to take the occasional furtive peek at TeaChat when at the office, it's nice if I'm not advertising the fact to my coworkers

I miss the breadcrumb trail to take me back to the subforum for the thread I'm currently reading. Breadcrumbs go nicely with tea.

+1, +1, +1

I'm on a smaller laptop screen, and I have a reduced viewing window anyway. The stationary banner takes up ~20-25% of my viewing space. Ouch.

The big fonts are okay, but they just seem to needlessly repeat information. Do I need to know that ever post in a thread is "RE: Whatever"...? The subject *used* to just be a smaller bold. Okay, maybe that old type didn't stand out very well, but... hrm

Finally, I agree about missing the breadcrumb links at the bottom of the thread. It was a good way to skip around when you had gotten to the end of the thread, as opposed to hitting back a bunch of times.

Otherwise, hey, things seem to be rolling along pretty well... for me at least

Drax wrote: ... I agree about missing the breadcrumb links at the bottom of the thread. It was a good way to skip around when you had gotten to the end of the thread, as opposed to hitting back a bunch of times.

I agree with Cinnamon Kitty, Chamekke, and Drax that the breadcrumb trail was a very natural and convenient way to move around the Forum Tree, and I would like to see it brought back. Also, before the change it seemed to me that if you used the browser's `back' key to exit from a forum then the forum would not be marked as read. Has this been fixed with the abolition of breadcrumbs?

Oh, I've also noticed that the "go to new posts" button on the threads (that little tiny square icon next to the big icon on the left) -- appears to overshoot slightly when going to the new posts in a thread. Possibly because it's not accounting for what the banner 'hides' -- but I always have to scroll up a little bit to start at the 'true' new point.

Drax wrote:Oh, I've also noticed that the "go to new posts" button on the threads (that little tiny square icon next to the big icon on the left) -- appears to overshoot slightly when going to the new posts in a thread. Possibly because it's not accounting for what the banner 'hides' -- but I always have to scroll up a little bit to start at the 'true' new point.

scruffmcgruff wrote:Well, now there is a way to navigate back to subforums, but it has added another 33% to the immovable Great Wall of Adagio stuck at the top of the page. There must be a better way...

Plus this immovable wall is still blocking the admin/mod move topic function. There was also a bread crumb trail at the bottom of the old forum pages, so after you finished reading the last post, you could either go back to the last forum or to the index.

Perhaps many people will hate me for this suggestion but I would consider a nice banner at the top. Either featured member photo or featured tea.

It's a very small issue but if you could change the blue text color for the poll and page numbers and links (on click state) to let's say brown it would be great! But it's not a big deal. Thanks for the update/improvement.

JP wrote:As suggested I changed the topic title. If y'all don't like that one either then I'll change it again tomorrow.

Thanks!

Things I think I like. The top banner remains stationary while the forum scrolls under it. Pretty slick.

I like that non members cannot view member information and member lists.

Speaking of member lists, there is only one option for sorting. The old way with several options was nice.

Also, not sure if this was mentioned, when in a forum (say Feedback) and viewing a topic, there is no way of going back to Feedback. One has to go back to the homepage/index.

Pretty slick? This is wasting 1/4 of my screen real estate for reading all the time. I am strongly opposed to this. Combined with the now giant fonts, I can barely read 3 posts on the page without scrolling.